Moments of Brilliance: Ryan Reynolds’s abs in “Blade 3”

Arguably the most memorable scene in Blade 3, and the title character’s barely in it. The major thing movies with a mostly-silent protagonist usually forget is that everything hinges on the side characters bouncing off of them. Blade is not that interesting, but people trying to interact with a vampire-killing-machine-that’s-also-a-vampire is.

Parker Posey is the perfect casting for a vampire. I don’t think she was even acting or wearing makeup. For a long time, Posey was an indie darling, which is all wasted time when you realize her perfect casting was in the second sequel to a low-ranking Marvel franchise. I also would pay a lot of money to watch a movie about Parker Posey’s vampire and Ryan Reynolds vampire servant dating. It could be mostly sex scenes. No one would really mind.

This is where Hulk failed. Banner’s gamma rage has always been an introducing concept, but it’s difficult to make a large angry screaming thing interesting when not throwing tanks at planes. You can’t throw that on Jennifer Connelly! She is good at being pretty and sad. And doing lewd sex acts with older men for heroin. The Incredible Hulk at least had Liv Tyler drawing from her deep role on Empire Records and Ty Burrell being Ty Burrell.

That’s what we can learn from Blade 3: Take your straight men and use them properly, not dicing out terrible kill lines (see: Kindergarten Cop versus every other Arnold movie). Also, work on your abs. Damn, Ryan Reynolds.